Dec. 22nd, 2015

Dec. 22nd, 2015

There's a big difference between weather and climate. Weather is immediate; climate is gradual. 50 years from now, when the Earth's average temperature has climbed a half a degree or more, thanks to the warming effects of human-caused pollution, people will still point to a cold day in January as proof that nothing has changed.

Just like the proverbial frog in the slowly boiling pot of water, slow change is difficult to perceive. Only by assiduous collection of data, and by the subsequent analysis of that data, can we detect long-term trends.